Wings of Fire: The Sands of Time
by Xyrule
Summary: Prophecies can be complicated.
1. The Dragonets

Glory was waiting impatiently as the others caught up, with Clay and Tsunami standing to either side of Webs, keeping him from collapsing.

Starflight was walking next to Clay, and Sunny was behind Webs, frequently looking worriedly at the scales near the base of Webs' tail, which were a dark purple as the poison from Blister's stinger spread from the wound.

Glory was all for leaving their old guardian to die. It made her mad that she seemed to be the only one that cared that he had treated them horribly. She seemed to be the only one who remembered that he was willing to stay back and let someone kill her. She would have gone ahead, but her desire to stay with her friends overrode her hatred for the SeaWing.

Starflight glanced at the surrounding area, then at Webs. "Guys, we really need to hurry. We're only half a day away from Queen Moorhen's Palace. If we get caught, it won't be good."

Clay nodded. "More prison. We don't need any of that." he said. The others nodded in agreement, except Webs, who just groaned.

Naturally, they were immediately spotted by a MudWing patrol, though the pair didn't shout or try to intercept them, rather, they took off, flying towards the Palace.

Several hours later, the leading edge of the Rainforest Kingdom could be seen on the horizon. Glory started flying the second she saw the trees, but slowed herself down before she could get too far ahead of the others.

Once the others had caught up, they continued on. After another fifteen minutes, during which Glory complained incessantly, they had finally reached the tree line.

To Glory's annoyance, Tsunami called for them to stop here for a while. Glory looked back at her to make a snarky comment, but decided against it when she saw how tired the group was.

Tsunami and Clay carefully set Webs down on several of the logs that were scattered around the area, eliciting several groans from the old SeaWing.

Once they were sure he wouldn't shift too much, they sat down heavily, and Glory could see the exhaustion on their faces very clearly.

Webs wasn't a large dragon, and he was very light and they were strong, but by now, he had completely lost the use of his back legs, and dragging him for as long as they had would take a toll on any dragon.

Glory looked at the forest, now so close that she could touch the trees, then back at the group. Eventually, she sat down next to Starflight, deciding that Tsunami had made the right decision.

The instant she sat down, she became aware of how tired she was. She hadn't noticed before, because of her excitement at seeing her tribe, but the journey had consumed more of her energy than she had previously thought. In fact, now, she really just wanted to sleep…


	2. The Mystery Scavenger

When Glory woke up, she became aware that something was wrong. She was still bleary-eyed from sleep, but her sense of smell was at full force.

She didn't recognize the smell at first. It was musty, and she could detect dirt, stagnant water, and…

Well, that explains what was wrong. She was surrounded by MudWings.

Her eyes shot open, and the rest of her senses snapped into focus.

She gasped out loud at what she saw. She was in some kind of underground cavern, though she couldn't imagine what had constructed it.

She held a claw over her mouth, afraid that the MudWings would hear her, but none seemed to notice.

They were all facing the same direction, towards a large platform that was empty except for two dragons, one MudWing and one Sandwing, whom Glory instantly recognized.

Well, if Burn was here, then the MudWing must be Queen Moorhen.

Instinctively, her scales shifted to match the color of the wet dirt she was sitting on, and she vanished from view.

She cautiously moved between the MudWings, gradually making her way within earshot of the queens. She thought that, maybe, she could figure out from what they were talking about where the rest of her friends were.

"Are they contained?" Burn asked. Moorhen nodded.

"We made sure to have each of their cells individualized, and each can be moved at will without letting them out." she responded. "Shall I have them brought in?"

Burn nodded. "I particularly have something to say to the RainWing." she said, gritting her teeth to keep herself from releasing flame.

It occurred to Glory that she had forgotten about Queen Scarlet. She wondered if Burn knew what Scarlet's fate was.

Moorhen looked at a small group of the surrounding MudWings, and they rushed to collect the dragonets and bring them to her.

When the group had gone, Glory became aware of a new smell. It was faintly metallic, and difficult for her to pinpoint.

She eventually tracked the smell to its source, and blinked in surprise.

A lone scavenger was attached to the ceiling, though Glory couldn't see how it was able to stay on.

The scavenger looked nothing like the others she had seen before. It was covered in a black fabric that gripped its body like a second layer of skin, and it had several metal claws held in some kind of holster on its back.

It was looking down at the two queens, though, to Glory's surprise, it didn't seem afraid. Instead, the way it was scanning them made it look more like it was calculating angles of attack.

It broke its gaze and looked in Glory's direction, and she exhaled with surprise, checking her scales to make sure she was still camouflaged. She was still hidden, but it had clearly noticed her.

It raised a hand and put a finger over its mouth, a gesture Glory didn't know, but she could understand the basic meaning. _Don't give me away._

When it was sure she understood, it looked back downwards, and shifted its position into what was clearly preparation to drop down.

She saw its legs tense, and it suddenly released its hold on the ceiling of the cavern and fell.


	3. Assassin

The scavenger twisted in the air so that it was falling feetfirst, and in the instant before its feet made contact with Moorhen's back scales, had pulled out two of its metal claws.

When it landed, it slashed the claws laterally, slicing the tendons allowing Moorhen to use her wings.

Moorhen cried out and tripped, caught off-balance by the sudden attack and the pain she now felt in her wings. The scavenger stayed upright, using whatever mechanism that had attached it to the ceiling to grip onto her back.

Burn backed up, shocked into simply staring at the scavenger that had suddenly decided to attack her ally.

The scavenger didn't stop with just one slash, and cut again with both claws, slashing multiple times, until Moorhen was almost paralyzed with pain and blood loss.

The scavenger detached its feet just long enough to step forward, and with a final motion, raised the metal claws and brought them down on Moorhen's neck. The claws went through her scales like they weren't even there, and buried themselves down to the handle the scavenger used to hold them. Moorhen shuddered and gasped, and went still.

All this had happened in the span of a few seconds, and when the scavenger pulled its claws out of the MudWing's neck, every dragon in the cavern was staring at it.

Glory broke her stare for long enough to scan the cavern, and was relieved to see the other dragonets, each with two MudWing guards to their cell. They too were staring at the scavenger, unable to react.

Glory's head snapped to the side when she heard Burn's shriek, which echoed throughout the cavern and became like thousands of SandWings shouting in outrage.

"What have you done?!" she screamed at the scavenger, shooting a bolt of fire.

The scavenger jumped to the side and hit the ground, rolling out of the way of the blast, which only succeeded in igniting Moorhen's body.

Burn gave another cry of outrage and sent another bolt at the scavenger, who simply jumped out of the way again.

The scavenger chose to go on the offensive, and ducked under another bolt of fire, then ran towards Burn.

Burn growled and held in another flame burst, opting instead to wait for the scavenger to get close enough, then swung her tail into its path.

It ducked, and the barbed tip of the tail just barely grazed over its chest, cutting a slit across the garment it was wearing.

It stood back up and continued racing towards Burn, who was now both angry and dumbfounded by the sheer speed the tiny creature was able to reach.

Its face twisted into a smirk, and it dropped to the ground and slid under Burn's body, raising one of the metal claws and cutting across her stomach.

She collapsed, and the scavenger just barely avoided being crushed by her weight.

Before she could recover from the slash, the scavenger had crawled up her side using the gripping mechanism it had and jabbed a small glass tube with a spike at one end into the scales surrounding her shoulder. The scavenger pressed down, and the odd liquid filling the tube disappeared into her blood.

Right away, Burn leapt back up, howling in pain. The spike was small enough that she wouldn't have noticed it, so it must have been whatever that liquid was, though Glory couldn't imagine what could cause that reaction.

The scavenger leapt off, taking the tube with it, and quickly removed the spike and put it back into a pocket on its garment. While it did so, it shifted so that Glory had a full view of its front.

She cringed, seeing that the scavenger had, for all its evasion, sustained an injury. The cut across its front, caused by the barbed end of Burn's tail, had broken through the skin, and was turning dark purple.

She shivered, remembering what SandWing venom had done to Webs. Surely a scavenger would be killed even faster.

The scavenger didn't seem to notice the wound, though. Instead, it sliced at Burn's foreleg, at the same side that he had injected the liquid into.

Burn collapsed with a cry, and struggled back to her feet, growling menacingly at the attacker.

"Stop moving!" she growled, snapping at the scavenger's head.

It dodged and, to the surprise of every dragon within earshot, replied, speaking in a rough form of Draconian. Its calm tone was a stark contrast to Burn's rage.

"No." it said. "I won't. You have not been chosen."

Burn froze in her tracks, eyes wide. This scavenger not only spoke Draconian, but also knew of the prophecy?

She narrowed her eyes and tried to snap at the scavenger again, but her muscles refused to move. Her eyes widened again as she realized that she was completely paralyzed by whatever had been in that tube. "What are you?" she growled. The scavenger smirked.

"Prophecies can be complicated." was all it said, and calmly walked to the SandWing's head and looked directly into her eye. Burn glared at him and continued trying to force her muscles to respond.

He said something quietly, so that none of the MudWings that still stood frozen in shock around them could hear, and Burn blinked, then relaxed and went still.

The scavenger backed away from the queen and turned around, looking over the crowd. When it spoke, it spoke loudly, so that every dragon in the room could hear it, and if the fact that it was standing next to the bodies of two queens wasn't fear-inducing enough, it also seemed to be entirely unaffected by Burn's venom.

"Let it be known that today, Queen Burn has been killed. Let it be known that today, the MudWings and the SkyWings have chosen the wrong side. Let it be known that today marks the beginning of the end of this war."

It looked in the direction of the still-trapped dragonets and sighed. "And let them go, they did nothing wrong."

It looked up and took out a strange device, pointed it at the ceiling, and pressed a button. A wire shot out and wrapped itself around a boulder jutting out from a small hole in the rock.

It pressed another button, and the wire quickly pulled it up and into the hole, and it vanished from sight.

When it disappeared, the spell that had taken the dragons in the cavern was broken, and they collectively roared.

Burn was dead. Part of the prophecy had been fulfilled.

Somewhere on the surface, the assassin sat underneath a tree. It was holding a small pad of paper with a short list written on it. The first line had been crossed out.

The scavenger smirked. "One down, two to go." it said to itself, putting the pad away.


	4. Chaos Across Pyrrhia

Despite the MudWings' efforts to stop it, the news of Burn's death had spread quickly. Within a matter of weeks, every dragon in Pyrrhia, except perhaps the RainWings, knew that the queen and one of her allies had been killed the same way that her mother had, by a scavenger's weapons.

Now, tension was high throughout the continent. There were only two rival queens left, and no one knew which side the SkyWings and MudWings would join, if they even decided to remain active in the war.

The MudWings had lost their queen, and the fate of Queen Scarlet was still unknown. Both sides were in turmoil, and because of the massive portion of the continent that their kingdoms covered, their chaos spread to every other kingdom.

Alliances and rivalries were being formed in scattered groups among both sides. In the Sky Kingdom, Ruby gained a significant amount of followers. They needed a queen, and she was their best bet until they knew what had happened to Scarlet.

In the Mud Kingdom, some even talked of letting the MudWing dragonet, Clay, lead them. It was a small population that thought such an unprecedented idea, especially in wartime, but the concept had begun to gain ground. It was common knowledge that the dragonets of destiny would never choose Burn, and this event lead many to believe that they were somehow connected to the assassin.

That was what had caused the most major issues. When a queen was killed, the victor would succeed her. But both Moorhen and Burn had died by a scavenger's hand, and neither had heirs to succeed them. It had not occurred since the war had begun, nineteen years before.

Of course, great souls can arise in the midst of chaos.


	5. Hurricane

A hurricane was raging over the ocean. It was more powerful than they usually were that time of year. No sane dragon would dare to try and fly through it.

Of course, there was one dragon crazy enough to brave the storm. A lone SkyWing was attempting to counteract the battering rain and high winds that whipped it around like it was nothing.

The SkyWing was having little luck. Her wings were too large, constantly catching the wind and driving her off track, and the fizzling sound the rain made as it hit her scales was incredibly distracting.

She had entirely the wrong body type for this weather, but she didn't care. She just knew that she had to fly, as far away from that kingdom as she could possibly get. She had no idea where she was going, but she was certain that anywhere was better than the place she had left.

She cried out into the wind as one of her wings locked, and she dropped, quickly picked up again by the wind.

She desperately flapped in an effort to regain control, but she couldn't get enough lift with only one useable wing, and only succeeded in making herself dizzy.

She closed her eyes until the dizziness had passed, then opened them again.

She cried out again as she realized that she was falling. She could see the ocean below, and it was quickly getting closer.

She thought of the five dragonets she had met at the arena, especially the MudWing that was their leader.

Her last thought before hitting the water was _I'm sorry I wasn't able to do more._ She sighed and closed her eyes as the world went black.


	6. Human

The SkyWing's mind swam back into consciousness, and she became aware of an odd smell, like iron and some unidentifiable animal, and someone singing nearby, though her vision was too blurred by sleep for her to see who it was.

"When you fight with fate, and the ones you hate are the world's last hope, the rope tightens. I wanna bury the lies, and let the dragons fly. But with this pain inside, there's nothing I can hide." the voice sang. She didn't recognize the song, but the words were oddly soothing.

She shifted her head to get a better angle, and she could hear the words more clearly.

"No matter what we learn, we blaze, blister and burn. This is the life we lead, this is the li-"

The voice cut off, and she heard it chuckle. "I see you're awake." it said. It sounded masculine, but she couldn't identify the species.

"I'm too tired to open my eyes." she said. "What are you?" _Please don't be an IceWing or a SeaWing._ she thought.

"Understandable." the voice said. "You were pretty badly injured. I healed as much as I could, though. You should be fine."

 _A MudWing, then._ she thought, remembering the healing treatment Clay had told her about. She didn't really like the idea of having mud poured on her, but she was happy the mystery dragon had saved her life.

They sat in silence, and she decided that maybe she should rest for a few more minutes…

When she woke again, she sensed that it had definitely been more than a few minutes.

She lifted her head and opened her eyes, blinking several times until the blurriness had given way to clarity.

She looked around and frowned. There was no sign of the other dragon. She was alone on a beach, other than a single scavenger that was a few feet away, leaning on a tree.

The scavenger looked at her and smiled, looking at the sky, then back at her. "Good morning." it said, and she reared her head back.

It had spoken in Draconian, and sounded very much like the dragon that had spoken to her earlier.

It smiled again, seeing her reaction. "Not expecting me, were you?" it asked.

She blinked, then lowered her head and sniffed at the scavenger. So that explained the odd smell.

"How did you heal me?" she asked, raising her head again. She recorded the smell in her permanent memory. For some reason, she had a feeling this scavenger was more important than it -he?- seemed.

The scavenger laughed, his tone light. "Most dragons would first ask me how I speak Draconian."

"I was wondering that too…" she said, and he smiled.

"I'm a dracologist. I research dragons. I've been in Pyrrhia for several years now."

She could sense that he wasn't telling the whole story, but she decided to take his word for it. "Do you have a name?" she asked.

The scavenger smiled. "I use my birth name, David, around humans, but here, I use a more dragonlike name, 'Shadowclaw.'" He tilted his head a little. "What about you? What's your name?"

For a second, she hesitated, but the way he was looking at her, she had a feeling he already had guessed who she was. She had no idea how extensive his dragon knowledge was, nor did she recognize the term "human", but she made a decision anyway.

"I'm Peril." she answered, and the human smiled and nodded.


	7. One Less Secret

Peril decided that she would call the human by his birth name. She thought it fit him better than "Shadowclaw." He didn't seem to mind, and said nothing to the contrary.

"So, why exactly were you flying alone in the middle of a superstorm?" David asked.

Peril looked down at the ground. "I wanted to get as far away from the Sky Kingdom as I possibly could." she said.

David nodded. "I haven't been there in a while. Is Queen Scarlet's fate still unknown?" he asked.

Peril blinked. "You know about that?" she asked. David chuckled and nodded.

"I know quite a bit about current events. It helps to be able to hide easily and understand the things the dragons I come across say. And most of what I've heard is related to the war between the three- _two_ SandWing queens."

Peril's eyes narrowed. He had corrected himself far too quickly. It made her suspicious. "What side are you on?" she asked.

"I don't deal with decisions that have nothing to do with me. I'm just a scientist." he said. He tried to shrug it off and keep his face a mask, but Peril was quick enough to catch the slight, almost imperceptible flinch he had made when she had asked.

Her eyes narrowed further. "I think you're lying." she said. "Do you know what happened at Queen Moorhen's Palace?"

David flinched again, but quickly regained his calm demeanor. When he spoke, he sounded absolutely emotionless. "I was there when it happened."

Peril reared her head back. She didn't know what she had expected him to say, but that was definitely _not_ it.

"You were?" she asked. When he nodded, she continued. "Why?"

This time, Peril could definitely see him cringe. "I don't believe in prophecy." he said simply.

Peril's eyes widened. His answer had been short and highly calculated, but it had more than enough information hidden in it to tell her the answer he was trying to hide. She stared at him, mouth open in shock.

"You were the assassin." she said. You killed Burn."


End file.
